| Product Summary | | Label: New West | | UPC: 00607396616428 | | Release Date: 5/12/2009 | | Buy.com Sku: 210957426 | | Item#: M4MGRN | Format:  CD |
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| Song Listing |  |
Disc 1
| | Song Title | Sample | | 1. Pancho And Lefty ~ Steve Earle |  | | 2. White Freightliner Blues ~ Steve Earle | | | 3. Colorado Girl ~ Steve Earle | | | 4. Where I Lead Me ~ Steve Earle | | | 5. Lungs ~ Steve Earle | | | 6. No Place To Fall ~ Steve Earle | | | 7. Loretta ~ Steve Earle | | | 8. Brand New Companion ~ Steve Earle | | | 9. Rake ~ Steve Earle | | | 10. Delta Momma Blues ~ Steve Earle | | | 11. Marie ~ Steve Earle | | | 12. Don't Take It Too Bad ~ Steve Earle | | | 13. Mr. Mudd And Mr. Gold ~ Steve Earle | | | 14. (Quicksilver Daydreams Of) Maria ~ Steve Earle | | | 15. To Live Is To Fly ~ Steve Earle | |
| | "Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that." - Steve Earle Steve Earle's new album Townes, is his highly anticipated follow up to the Grammy Award winning album Washington Square Serenade. The 15-song set is comprised of songs written by Earle's friend and mentor, the late singer-songwriter, Townes Van Zandt. The songs selected for Townes were the ones that meant the most to Earle and the ones he personally connected to. Some of the selections chosen were songs that Earle has played his entire career ("Pancho and Lefty," "Lungs," "White Freightliner Blues"). He learned the song "(Quicksilver Daydreams of) Maria" directly from Van Zandt. Earle taught himself "Marie" and "Rake" specifically for making this record. Earle recorded the New York sessions solo and then added the other instruments later on in order to preserve the spirit of Van Zandt's original solo performances to the best of his recollection. The track "Lungs," was produced and mixed by the Dust Brothers' John King and features Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine/The Nightwatchman on electric guitar.
| | Album Notes and Credits |
Notes & Personnel Info |  | Personnel: Steve Earle (vocals, guitar, mandola, mandolin, harmonica, harmonium, percussion); Justin Townes Earle (vocals, guitar); Allison Moorer (vocals); Tom Morello (electric guitar); Darrell Scott (dobro, banjo); Tim O'Brien (mandolin); Shad Cobb (fiddle); John Spiker (electric bass); Dennis Crouch (bass guitar); Greg Morrow (drums); Steven Christensen (percussion). | | Audio Mixers: Ray Kennedy; John King ; Ray Kennedy. | | Liner Note Author: Steve Earle. | | Recording information: New York, NY; Room and Board, Nashville, TN; Sound Emporium, Nashville, TN. | | Photographers: Jim Herrington; Al Clayton; Ted Barron. | | With the appropriately titled TOWNES, Steve Earle pays tribute to his mentor, the late singer/songwriter legend Townes Van Zandt. Like Earle, Van Zandt was a Texan who made his way to Nashville even though his music didn't fit the mainstream country mold. Earle, who learned a lot from Van Zandt, honors his hero's mix of country, folk, and poetic lyricism with an affectionate trip through the Van Zandt songbook. Whether he's tackling a dark, moody tune like "Marie," a post-Dylan flight of lyrical fancy like "Lungs," or a trad-tinged country song like "White Freightliner Blues," Earle brings just the right mix of reverence and renegade fire to the table. |
Producer: John King; Steve Earle; Steve Earle |
Engineer: Ray Kennedy; Steve Christensen; Ray Kennedy; Steve Christensen; Andrew Clark |
| | Compilation Appearances |
| | Technical Info | | Release Date : 05/12/2009 | | Original Release Date : 2009 | | Catalog ID : 6164 | | Label : New West Records, Inc. | | Number of Discs : 1 | | Studio/Live : Studio | | Mono/Stereo : Stereo | | SPAR Code : n/a | | UPC : 00607396616428 |
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| | Professional Reviews | | Rolling Stone (p.72)
- 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "Earles knows these songs intimately -- some of the greatest in the folk-country canon -- and delivers them with the ease of breathing, mostly unadorned."Spin (p.86)
- "[H]e does his idol justice on this vibrant covers set, delivering supersonic bluegrass and starry-eyed ballads with the same thoughtful finesse." Entertainment Weekly (p.59)
- "On his latest album, Steve Earle, who remains Van Zandt's foremost disciple, gives 15 favorites the kind of carefully considered settings they deserve..." Billboard (p.34)
- "Throughout, Earle's shape-shifting voice inhabits the songs just like Van Zandt's own colorful characters inhabit them..." Q (Magazine)
(p.132)
- 4 stars out of 5 -- "[A] dream album, full of devotion, care and spirit as he gently caresses new nuances out of even the much-covered and revered 'Pancho & Lefty,' and adds sinister new layers to 'Marie'..." Record Collector (magazine)
(p.82)
- 4 stars out of 5 -- "This is an album of subtlety and reserve, which allows the original emotional intent of the music to speak for itself." |
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| | Bio | | | Steve Earle "The city hasn't changed as much as real estate agents would have you believe," Steve Earle explains about his adopted hometown of New York City. "Specifically, my neighborhood hasn't changed that much. I point people in the right direction so that they can take their picture like the cover of Freewheelin' all the time." That's easy enough for Earle these days, because he and his wife, singer-songwriter Allison Moorer, now live on the very Greenwich Village street on which the famous cover shot for The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1962) was taken. In that photo, Dylan and his then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo huddle against the cold as they walk along a snowy New York street. It's an indelible romantic image that captures the idealism of the folk revival that was gathering momentum in New York at the time. Steve Earle's gripping new album, Washington Square Serenade, is a loving tribute to that era, that movement, that music and the city that gave them all a nurturing home. "That period changed pop music," Earle says. "It made lyrics much more important. Rock & roll could have become a subgenre of pop if it hadn't been for that literary aspect, which completely came out of a four-block area in New York City in one brief instant of time." Like Freewheelin' itself, Serenade is an album that combines songs of love and protest, a stirring chronicle of both the connections between people that make life worth living and the things that must be changed in order to make such connections more possible for everyone. "I knew it was going to be pretty personal," Earle says about the album, which he recorded at Electric Lady Studios, the famed Greenwich Village recording complex that Jimi Hendrix built in the late Sixties. "The best part of my personal life was going so well I knew that chick songs were going to be no problem. As for political songs, I don't think I've ever made an apolitical record. The last two before this [The Revolution Starts ... Now (2004), Jerusalem (2002)] were overtly political, and unapologetically so. This one is unapologetically personal."
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